


my truest love

by whalerdaud



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Low Chaos Corvo Attano, M/M, Pining, Selectively Mute Corvo Attano
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-07 16:37:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21461164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whalerdaud/pseuds/whalerdaud
Summary: And it’s comfortable. The Outsider wishes he could live in this moment for a while longer, where Corvo is smiling, small and secretive, like it’s something to hide, and the sun is warm and the water splashes against his legs as Corvo swims and the world is not too much, narrowed to a single point.He’s lived for centuries; time has never felt like it wasn’t long enough, but it does now, and he doesn’t know how to feel.
Relationships: Corvo Attano/The Outsider (Dishonored)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 131





	my truest love

**Author's Note:**

> i didn't include it in the tags but there's a little twist, a little 'wuh woh' moment, if you will. some dialogue is taken from the first game, and there are spoilers only for the gist of each level on low chaos mode.
> 
> beta'd by [dadcorvo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dadcorvo). title is part of a quote from Black Sails, which i can't recommend enough.
> 
> enjoy! :-)

There are no stars in the sky. There is no sky either. 

Fitting, that the first thing he would see is darkness. The terror of his life ended not with an uproar, but as hardly a whisper against clenched knuckles. The hand wavers and raises high until the blade is level with his throat, and that is the last thing he sees. 

His senses return slowly, first with touch - wet blood ruining the paleness of his skin, running down the curve of his throat, pooling underneath him to coat his hair and shoulders. No matter how quickly he turns his mind from it, a simple truth reaches him: life begins and ends with blood. How poetic.

He sits and wipes tears from his eyes, then brings a hand to his throat and smears the blood there. It’s warm. He shudders as it sticks to his hand, even as he presses his palm to the ground and stands, leaving behind a bloody print. 

This is the first thing he leaves behind in his new life. It’s also the easiest, and most forgettable, but sometimes all he wants is to lie down and let the blood drown him.

* 

The Outsider, they call him. 

He hears it for the first time in waters claimed only by the monsters who live there. A fisherman sees a blue whale burst from the waves beside where his line’s been sinking all evening. He yelps in alarm, grips his straw hat as he falls, and points a shaky finger at the spectacle. A shocked smile adorns his lips, rising joyfully like the beast from the sea.

“Whoever blessed me this day, whichever outsider you are, I drink with you tonight!” says the fisherman through a sharp laugh.

Water from the whale’s blowhole showers into the sky and drenches the boat before they disappear into the sea one final time. That night, the fisherman drinks until his tales of the whale slur together, nearly incomprehensible to those who suffer him an ear.

He hears it again months later when a farmer cries as his most loyal horse dies. Hiccuping through tears, she says, “What outsider took you from this world? Which cruel, heartless man do I have to curse for this travesty?”

They speak his name for years and for centuries and for too long to track. Soon they _give_ it to him rather than merely taunt him with it. He hears it again in a time vastly different from his own - where no one would recognize his voice or face should he reveal them after so long - in Gristol, which is the title they’ve given to the land. He remembers the island’s previous names and when it was called nothing at all. How comfortable, to be known as nothing at all, to be known not at all.

A solemn group of men walk home, smoking and drinking and wishing for the warmth of their beds. Rain begins to fall as one of them, a tall man with very little hair on his head, says, “They’re calling him something now. They’ve named him. Is it possible to name a god?”

“It’s not like he’ll tell us what he’d like to be called. You know what kind of people don’t go by their real names? Criminals. I’ve been saying, you know I have, that he’s not much of a god.”

The third man scowls as the rain dampens his smoke. “Only lunatics I’ve seen worshipping him are those that beg more days of the week than they bathe.”

They all laugh long into the night, rain pouring down and filling their empty bottles straight to the top.

Dunwall gives him a different name. How special they must think they are. 

“The Leviathan,” says an Overseer, echoed by a slightly higher-ranking Overseer, followed by Campbell and Burrows and every weeper roaming the streets. “He walks among us.”

The Outsider, he finally accepts. If only they knew how right they were.

* 

He wants to leave a mark on the world. 

Vera Moray comes first. An expedition to Pandyssia steals her boredom and fills the empty space left behind with a black Mark, darker than her hair. The Outsider watches sanity escape her as slow and steady as the brushstrokes on Sokolov’s paintings; watches her prestige and home and sight leave her; watches the careful twist of her hand as she carves her dead husband’s bones into gifts for him. It’s unbecoming, but enjoyable nonetheless. In the end, Granny Rags is not his fault.

Daud follows soon after. He was a mistake.

Delilah Copperspoon surprises him - a Kaldwin, living in exile and conspiring against everyone around her. The Outsider finds her in Sokolov’s studio hunched over a beautiful piece that will never see the light of day. She was waiting for him, it seemed, paintbrush mixing the murky waters of its glass until she forgets it and meets his eye. Delilah goes into the Void like it was formed for her and the Outsider wonders if regret will find him once again.

Last is Corvo Attano from Serkonos, young and ambitious and _interesting._

* 

“Hello, my dear Corvo. Your life has taken a turn, has it not? The Empress is dead, her precious daughter Emily is lost somewhere in the city, and you will play a pivotal role in the days to come. For this, I have chosen you and drawn you into the Void.”

Corvo doesn’t say anything, only looks back at him. The Outsider glances to a spot above his eyebrow where blood should be spilling from, but there are no wounds in the Void - at least, not in the physical sense.

“I am the Outsider, and this is my Mark,” he says, sweeping a hand across Corvo’s own to reveal a glowing Mark. It smokes and sears into his skin and Corvo stays silent, clenching his fist and staring until the brightness fades to black.

“There are forces in the world and beyond the world, great forces that men call “magic,” and now these forces will serve your will. Use this new-found power, my gift to you.”

Instead of growing indignant or teary-eyed at the new and unfamiliar strangeness of everything around him, Corvo lowers his hand and tenses as the back of it brushes against the coarseness of his jacket. He looks up with a particular bluntness the Outsider hasn’t been met with in a very long time.

With a slight upturn of his lips and curiosity clear in his gaze, the Outsider says, “Come find me.” 

Corvo follows him through the scene of Emily’s abduction and to the gazebo where the Empress sprawls along the ground. Without touching her, without hardly looking at her, the Outsider knows she is colder and paler here than in death; the Void is indifferent, uncaring of who it displays, treating them all the same.

The Heart, however, is warm and wet and bleeds onto his skin, reminding him of a time centuries ago when he was nothing but a dead boy. He passes it to Corvo, who flinches when it beats unabashedly in his grasp. His eyes lock on it like there’s something hidden among the mesh of muscle and protruding bone, a secret that’s wrapped patiently only for him to find.

“How you use what I have given you falls upon you, as it has to the others before you. And now, I return you to your world, but know this,” says the Outsider, tucking his hands behind his back and leaning forward. “I will be watching with great interest.”

The Outsider isn’t sure if Corvo heard him, being as entranced by the Heart as he is. Corvo tucks it carefully into his jacket and looks at him once again - he’s slightly horrified and mostly confused, but there’s something else beneath that, something that makes the Outsider feel truly weightless for the first time in this life. 

Later, he goes to Kaldwin’s Bridge and floats above the highest point, watching all that lurk past Wrenhaven River, including the boatman and his new friend.

* 

Dust. King Street Brandy. Rain on the ocean. Gunpowder. Burning wood, stronger than anyone expected.

_Corvo,_ the Outsider thinks, and goes where he calls. Facing away from the glowing shrine, Corvo studies the now-silent bone charm in his hands and turns around.

The Outsider crosses his arms. “You’re on your way to face the High Overseer, the leader of a great cult dedicated to loathing me. What will you do, I wonder?”

Corvo smiles. “Join them,” he says, and it’s funny, isn’t it, how surprising one person can be? 

“The Mark on your hand may make things difficult, so I should hope not.”

“That’s your only reason?”

“It would do no one any good for you to get yourself killed, or worse, _jailed_ again this early. Remember, I don’t give my gift to just anyone. I expect a show tonight.”

“I’m sure you do,” says Corvo. He pockets his new bone charm and rolls his shoulders, glancing sidelong at the Outsider. “And if I disappoint you?”

The Outsider hums and waves a flippant hand. “You could never do such a thing. How careless to believe that I’d ever think any less of you.”

“You’ve done it before, to others.”

“I don’t decide who wins and whose body gets tossed into the river to rot.”

“You enjoy watching.”

The Outsider grins, dreadfully slow and chilling. “Very much.”

Corvo seems caught between wanting to look away and being unable to, instead staring on with apprehensive interest.

“But you’re not the others,” the Outsider continues. “You’re -” 

“Someone you can forget. In a few years, in a century or two - however quickly time passes for you, I’ll be nothing but a wronged man who was missing his daughter.”

Lurid purple reflects off the edges of Corvo’s mask held loosely by his side; the shrine buzzes as the Outsider leans against it, tilting his chin up to take all of Corvo in.

He says, “Everyone is missing something, my dear Corvo. Many have lost daughters and many more have lost themselves searching for her, or have turned to darker means to bring her back. You lost not only a daughter, but the heir to the throne, the throne itself, and an Empress. I find your future in these regards most interesting, and quite unforgettable.” 

Corvo flushes. The Outsider thinks it might be from anger, or from something else entirely. Before he can ask, Corvo says, “Enjoy yourself, then. I’d hate to keep Campbell waiting.”

He reattaches his mask and walks up the stairs and away from where the Outsider hovers by the shrine. Upstairs, Vera paces and mutters, completely unaware of the treasonous meeting in her basement.

Moonlight flows softly through the open front door and illuminates Vera’s musty home as a breeze creeps by, brushing leaves and trashed papers onto the doorstep. The Outsider closes his eyes and breathes in.

Corvo smells like his room in the Hound Pits Pub, which isn’t startling. Without his knowledge, the Outsider visited him the night before and stayed for scarcely a minute - he glanced about the dusty room and thought the lights from the other side of the river looked like sinking boats in a sea of black. He didn’t look at Corvo very much, actually. 

The Mark was still on his hand tangled underneath the covers. The Outsider concentrated, then relished in seeing the white-hot glow from behind the blanket and Corvo twisting in his sleep, bringing his Marked hand to scratch lazily at his throat. 

It’s a nice throat. No cuts, no uneven slice from left to right. Very much alive, yet quiet.

The Outsider doesn’t smell like anything. He smelled of only blood for a very long time, until one winter passed and brought weeks of rainfall in its wake. Afterwards, he smelled of saltwater and stuffiness, and sometimes whales. Now he doesn’t smell like anything good or anything that anybody would want. Everything he is disappears in a wisp of black - never lingering, never welcome.

Tonight, Corvo smells most pressingly of blood. The boatman dropped him off not more than 20 minutes ago and he’s already bleeding enough to notice?

“Mind the hagfish,” the Outsider calls after him. 

Corvo sneaks back outside, passing by his wanted poster plastered on the brick across the street as a silent reminder of himself.

High Overseer Campbell does not die tonight. The Outsider is older than the rocks this place is built on and didn’t even see that coming. 

He tells Corvo this, and Corvo ducks his head and drags a muddy finger along the jawline of his mask, following the curve down to his chin. He acts as if he’s heard that one before. He probably has. 

“Now your choices interest me,” says the Outsider.

“An unfortunate consequence of them,” says Corvo. “I’m late to my boat.”

Samuel Beechworth would wait weeks for Corvo’s return, but the Outsider merely nods and stares at him for a second longer, even as he tenses under his gaze.

Finally, he says, “Goodnight, then. Or should I say good morning?” 

The sun rises over Dunwall in the east, Corvo returns to his boat, and the Outsider finds the morning lacking a certain warmth.

* 

Something is very, very wrong. 

A visit to the Estate District should entail nothing more than abhorrent fashion statements or unprompted snobbish remarks. People mill in and out of the Boyle mansion carrying frilly decorations and golden trays piled high with main courses and desserts, all the while complaining about _time, there’s never enough time for these things, is there?_

In a few days the sky will be ablaze with pearl-white balloons as illuminating as the stars, and dozens of masked guests will ponder Dunwall’s tragic future over drinks with the Boyle sisters; but today the Outsider sits cross-legged above a balcony and watches the party’s preparation unfold across from him.

It starts slowly at first, barely attracting any concern. 

The Outsider coughs once, only once, and then it’s over, except something catches in his throat. No matter how many times he struggles to clear it, the feeling persists and brings with it another cough, longer and attacking his throat with a strange ferociousness. Tears swell under his eyes as he pounds on his chest and doubles over to face the grime seeping into the streets below. 

He doesn’t know what’s going on.

Something resembling pain shoots up his spine as he stumbles through the doors behind him - they splay open against his fall, and then he’s inside and on his back, trying and failing to rush to his feet and instead skittering backward as soon as he stands again, another body-wracking cough consuming him. Frantic hands shoot to his throat, his chest, covering his mouth with eyes clenched shut as a most unusual agony invades his senses.

A broken mirror, cold against his sweaty hands, slides into his grip. The Outsider stares in horror at himself - his skeleton vanishes and reappears as often as he does and wraps around his heart beating red and fast, impossibly bright under his translucent skin. For a split second, he sees a near future in the mirror where his skin peels to reveal nothing but black within, pouring like blood from the eyes, quiet as a rat.

Air rushes out of his lungs and for one petrifyingly long moment, longer than all his days in the Void, he can’t breathe. The mirror shard drops from between shaking fingers, taking with it a stricken expression before thumping on the dusty ground. 

The next second comes and his cough is gone as quick as it came. The Outsider lies heavily against the broken floorboards and runs a desperate hand through his hair, across his chest, loose against his throat. He scrambles to the mirror and sees eyes so black until he closes them, breathing deeply like air is a gift from one of his many followers.

One more breath, then two. The ringing in his ears stops and a cool breeze sweeps into the room, cooling his face and calming his nerves.

Someone laughs outside, loud and exhilarating, followed by the sound of a railcar passing by. Smoke plumes between the balcony’s rails, silver and white through the open doors, and in the distance, the first of the white balloons rises into the sky.

A minute passes without anything sinister happening. 

Everything is fine.

* 

Corvo is merciful at the worst of times - an overconfident Overseer slices for his neck, and he does nothing more than dodge and trap him in a chokehold; the Pendleton twins betray all that he stands for, yet they flee unscathed to work in their silver mines, though not without tears to their reputation; rats gnaw at his ankles and fall over themselves trying to climb up his legs, but a quick hop onto a nearby table or tight grip around a length of chain ends the torment; Sokolov tests his unpredictable chemicals on innocent people, and he only pauses to sling him over his shoulder and hightail it back to his group of Loyalists.

It’s admirable to an extent, such as when his opponents are stronger, stealthier, and more willing to scrape the depths of their own morality to win. Corvo’s never allowed himself to treat them with anything more than quiet distraught, and it’s endearing. _To an extent._

Corvo bleeding out underneath Kaldwin’s Bridge, for example, is one such extent.

“I fell,” he manages to say. 

The Outsider frowns. “Yes, I saw. That tends to happen when someone stabs you near a ledge and you do nothing about it.” 

Blood drips endlessly from a gash on Corvo’s side and seeps into the dark blue of his coat; thin red streaks drift from the wound, reaching outward in the water to float through the mouths of hagfish. 

“I suggest doing something about this before the hagfish eat you,” says the Outsider from where he hovers above the murky water, eyes unblinking and thin hands resting on his knees. 

Corvo squints through the sunlight sinking between the bridge’s beams - his wet hair curls slightly at the ends as water drips off the tip of his nose, hand pressed flat against his waist and squeezing tight. Biting back any reply he may have, he grabs his mask floating beside him and starts swimming to the nearest shore.

The Outsider trails beside him. “The Mark is meant to be _used._ Why did you let yourself fall?”

“I didn’t _let_ myself fall,” says Corvo, sparing him a glance. “That Overseer - he was too fast, and I can’t Blink very far as it is.”

“You almost died.”

Corvo smirks, then laughs. “Like you’d ever let that happen.”

The Outsider isn’t used to this, not at all. He’s never encountered others who could see right through him, picking apart his insides and grasping at what he truly means, what he truly wants. 

“Death wouldn’t be a good look for you,” he says instead of the plethora of other words that want to escape. “It’s hardly flattering on many, though some wear it very well. Campbell would have.” 

“Are you -” Corvo starts, his hands stalling in the water for a second. “I thought I could never disappoint you.”

“No, never.”

And it’s comfortable. The Outsider wishes he could live in this moment for a while longer, where Corvo is smiling, small and secretive, like it’s something to hide, and the sun is warm and the water splashes against his legs as Corvo swims and the world is not too much, narrowed to a single point. 

He’s lived for centuries; time has never felt like it wasn’t long enough, but it does now, and he doesn’t know how to feel.

This is the second thing the Outsider leaves behind in his new life: his certainty that things will never change and that nothing will cause his heart to beat for someone again.

When they move close enough to shore, the Outsider vanishes to stand in front of a row of abandoned buildings along the riverside. The buildings - decaying, empty, left to rot or drown as the tide comes in - remind him of a time when they weren’t forgotten and when they weren’t buildings at all, but fields and rocky shores and an ever-changing seabed.

Corvo rolls onto his back, panting like a dog with the wet hair to match, and closes his eyes as the late afternoon light warms his face. Leaning over him with arms tucked behind his back, the Outsider aligns his face above Corvo’s and narrows his eyes.

He says, “I want to give you something.”

He takes a bone charm from his pocket and hands it to Corvo, who accepts it curiously, watching black wisps retreat into the charm before shifting his eyes to the Outsider.

“It’ll help time slow down when everything feels too fast. Perhaps next time it won’t be so easy to fall.” 

Corvo nods, stuffs it in his pocket, and pushes himself up. His injured side continues to look like it hurts a thousand times over and the Outsider stares at it, at Corvo, at the water dripping off his face, without shame. 

Sometimes he’ll stand closer to Corvo to see if any muscle in his face twitches, or if his hand will tighten around his blade, or if, most tellingly, he’ll take a step back. His composure is impressive in the face of those who seeth under his silence, including those most familiar to him.

In the Hound Pits Pub, he’ll spend days without ever saying a word to anyone, much to the annoyance of a few - Treavor Pendleton worries himself at night by believing that their new assassin knows what dark secrets dwell in his head, Lydia thinks it odd that he never makes a sound and wonders if that translates to other areas of his life, and Piero Joplin would like at least a quiet ‘thanks’ when handing over his precious devices to someone who can’t even bother to keep his mask clean. 

When Emily returns, Corvo can hardly contain his words. Sometimes the Outsider will sit on their roof at night and watch the Dunwall skyline as Corvo captivates Emily with each of his new adventures, forgoing certain frightening details and rushing to parts he knows she’ll laugh at. He talks about Emily’s drawings and her studies with Callista Curnow, but the Outsider has never heard him speak of the Empress. He wonders if words are a sort of pain for him sometimes, digging deep into his chest and making all other thoughts impossible.

Corvo’s lost everything and yet he says nothing, nor does he kill the ones who ruined him. It’s confusing, but more so incredibly intriguing.

“Now you can return the favor and give me something,” says the Outsider.

Corvo tilts his head, listening.

“Farley Havelock worries about you and Geoff Curnow wonders why you saved him if you can’t even spare a few words over drinks. Many annoyed and angry Overseers spread lies about you out of their own ignorance - the most popular, I believe, was that your tongue was missing, cut out by your parents or a vengeful lover. You never speak to your little band of Loyalists and rarely to the Overseers, yet you speak freely to me.”

“Is there a question in there?”

The Outsider sharpens his gaze on Corvo. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” says Corvo, looking somewhere past his shoulder with furrowed brows. “Maybe because I’ve been alone for 6 months, but you’ve been alone as long as you’ve been alive. I wonder how that feels. And the Void - it’s cold and terrifying, like Coldrige, and I thought the ground would swallow me up in both of them. But you _live_ there, only you and the whales.”

The Outsider’s gone very still, and he knows that Corvo has noticed by the way his eyes slide down the stiff line of his body. 

“So you talk to me,” he says around a thickness in his throat. “Because you’re lonely. And you think I am too.”

“Does that bother you?”

“No,” he decides. “I’m just not quite sure how true it is. I’m seen as a god with the entire world at my beck and call. Hoards of people devote themselves to me, pleading for my gift to reach them for hours, months, _years,_ and others murder or die for the chance of pleasing me. Among all this, there’s certainly no aching desire for companionship. Everyone _worships_ me.”

“That sounds awful, to look into someone’s eyes and see only your reflection.”

Kaldwin’s Bridge looms above, birds circling the tallest points with faint squawks as the afternoon begins to fade away. The Outsider’s suddenly had enough of Corvo for one day. _Oh,_ how surprising he is indeed.

“If I’m not mistaken, wasn’t Anton Sokolov with you?”

Corvo shoots up with wide eyes frantically turning to where he fell not more than 10 minutes ago - all is silent, though something dreadful must be happening on the bridge. 

Mouth pulling in a taut line, he speaks through the tired lines of his body and spares no glance to the Outsider while rushing back to his dear scientist.

Once he’s sure Corvo’s gone, the Outsider says as barely a whisper on the water, “It does, doesn’t it?”

* 

“Care to explain what happened, my dear husband?”

“There’s nothing to explain.”

Silence. Vera hums and twists the water faucet on - dark muck spills from the tap, wetting her gloves as she rubs her hands together underneath it.

Without turning around, she says, “Then I’ll tell you what happened to me. Those gentlemen from the Bottle Street Gang came by and pounded on my door, demanding that I let them in - something about a masked man or another, do you know him? - and I wanted to send a swarm of rats after them. When I reached for my power, the Mark failed me. I had to listen to them knock for hours before they grew tired and left. Completely ruined my evening, but your visit has saved it, my dear.”

He opens his mouth to reply, but Vera tilts her head and says, “You’re sick.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re sick.”

“I’m not.”

“I can hear it in your voice. It sounds just like when one of my little birdies is sick. Coo… Coo… I think the little birdies are sad today.”

The Outsider steps closer to her, speaking in a low voice. “I need something from you, and only you can give it to me. My situation is tense and can easily turn into something much worse if I’m not careful.”

“A present?” says Vera, turning to him and twiddling her thumbs. “Of course I have presents for you. Another rune from the bone of a whale, perhaps? Or a sacrifice, if you’d prefer?

The Outsider grimaces. “No. I need Piero’s Spiritual Remedy or Sokolov’s Elixir by tonight.”

“Ah, the Boyle party. Remember how we used to dance, my dear husband? Our parties were even grander than those at their manor. Everyone wanted to come.”

The Outsider remembers them well, especially the line of suitors vying for Vera’s attention. She never danced with any of them, not even when they complimented her until their voices strained, or when her room filled with gifts months before a party began. Even more so, he remembers how she never smiled brighter than when a man approached her, not until she placed her first gift on a shrine.

“The elixirs,” he says.

She goes to a cabinet and withdraws something, then finally looks in his direction. “Why not ask your favorite for help? Unless - you don’t want to worry him, do you? How sweet.”

“Vera,” he says, black mist beginning to swirl around him. “Give me the elixirs.”

She tuts, smiling. “I would never keep anything from you, my dear, not from the one I love. It’ll sicken you more than anything else in life. Here -”

And they’re in his hands, one blue and one red. “Thank you.”

“Get better soon,” she says, turning back to the sink. “I’ll write a spell to cure it, whatever _it_ is. What were you sick with again?” 

“Nothing. I’m not sick with anything. Don’t worry, for I fear you’ll get sick yourself.”

Vera laughs, high-pitched and sinister in the dreariness of her home. The Outsider straightens and feels himself finally return to his usual demeanor where he doesn’t cough or accept anything Sokolov’s made or run himself into a stupor. 

He’s fading away when Vera mutters, “Granny, Granny, Granny, come out with me instead. Granny, Granny, Granny, you can’t because you’re dead.”

* 

_Corvo Attano_, it says in the guest ledger. 

Under it, the Outsider writes _The Outsider,_ and smiles to himself.

“What an interesting mask,” says a woman walking in behind him. “Who’s the artist? I absolutely _must_ know.”

Eyes swimming with interest meet the Outsider’s own when he turns to her, raising a brow. She follows the long curves of the midnight-dark tentacles flowing from his mask and peers into the black of his eyes as if she can see his identity etched in the swirling darkness. 

“I fashioned it myself,” he says.

Her eyes widen, mouth dropping open. “You did? And who might _you_ be?”

In the next room, Corvo stands in front of a fireplace and watches Waverly Boyle out of the corner of his eye, an untouched drink in his hand. Smoke and amber light rise along his face and illuminate the caverns of his mask before flickering and drawing him further into shadow. 

The Outsider imagines what would happen if Corvo revealed his face to the room full of uptight aristocrats - lots of screaming, then every Overseer in a one-mile radius would converge on him, and his face would shift behind his mask, pulling into a look of deep concentration as he cleverly escapes. 

Something inside the Outsider races at the idea - _what would Corvo do if I took his mask off and let everyone see who he truly was?_

Waverly leaves the room, and Corvo follows.

“I’m no one,” says the Outsider, brushing past the woman. “Excuse me -”

He leaves the main room and enters a lively sitting area, taking in the many sights of the manor as he goes.

The Boyle Estate makes him sick like the plague never will. Castlesticks rest on lavish, drooping tablecloths that cover every surface, sweeping against confetti scattered tastefully on the floor. Each gold and silver tile looks highly refined, as if they were inspected one by one by each Boyle sister. Golden statues, a grand piano, and an entire fish to feast on catch the attention of most guests, while others linger in their conversations about whatever recent scandal washed up that week.

As the centerpiece of it all is _look at my wealth, look what I can do with it._ All the Outsider sees is what the Boyles aren’t doing with their money and how Dunwall suffers because of it.

He falls into step beside Corvo. “Is this what you dreamed of all those months in Coldridge Prison while waiting for the executioner?”

Corvo halts so suddenly that their shoulders brush for a brief moment. It makes the Outsider lift slightly off the ground before he remembers to steel himself. Hands clasped loosely behind his back, he watches Corvo’s attention shoot from him to Waverly.

“Wealth, beautiful women in the latest fashions, laughing and drinking Tyvian wine?” the Outsider continues as Waverly disappears into another room. “And what of the host, Lady Boyle?” 

Corvo’s head dips toward the other guests, toward their drink-filled hands and quiet words about the Masked Felon and treachery and to always watch, to always tell. He points at the Outsider and then gestures to the room at large, asking _why are you here?_

The Outsider plucks the glass from his hand and swirls the golden liquid around. “There’s many pieces in play here, and I’m deeply interested in how you’ll navigate tonight’s waters. Don’t tell me that my presence makes you nervous?”

What he doesn’t say is this - the Void is unreachable to him, and he doesn’t know why. 

Corvo seems to come to a conclusion. He walks steadily past the Outsider, only bristling a little when he’s followed, and stops at the end of an elaborate table filled with flowers and candles and a whole fish, which smells surprisingly better than the wine. 

“Half the city can see the lights from the party, and they dream of the delights inside. Will you tear it all to pieces?” says the Outsider, a cruel smile gracing his lips.

Waverly skirts around the room and addresses different guests as Corvo tracks her intently, not paying nearly as much attention to the Outsider as he so desires.

“I can see all her tomorrows and know that either she dies tonight at your hand, _or_ -” he says when Corvo straightens and pulls one side of his coat over the weapons at his belt. “She'll live out her days, month after month, year after year, far away, even as her fine clothes wear into tatters and her silken hair gets dull and gray.”

They both glance at Waverly as she hunches forward with a haughty laugh, picturing, for a second, her inevitable future. 

The Outsider is still looking at Waverly when smoke and saltwater assault his senses. Corvo takes a step closer; if he leaned down and spoke even a single phrase, his breath would warm the Outsider’s cheek.

The room feels smaller, tighter, more intimate. The Outsider grips the stem of his glass as joy surges through his chest. Finally the weight of Corvo’s focus reaches him and nothing else matters, if just for a moment.

Corvo’s Marked hand raises toward him and he’s going to do _what,_ exactly? What will Corvo choose to do in front of all these people? 

He shoves the Outsider’s shoulder, light and friendly to anyone else, but forceful enough to deliver a clear, disappointing message - _leave._

“I thought you enjoyed my company,” says the Outsider, inflecting hurt in his voice. “Parties are meant to be lived in, and I was hoping you might indulge a little tonight - after all, these past few months have been rather inconvenient for you. A dance may calm your nerves, or at least take your mind off things.”

There’s no music playing - or at least, no music anyone could dance to - and the Outsider knows this. Instead of moving away or stepping forward yet again, Corvo leans back slowly, measured; the broad line of his shoulders hint at a silent threat concealed among their shadows.

“Am I distracting you, my dear Corvo? Now you know how it feels,” the Outsider teases, tilting his head.

His pale hand fits snugly under his own mask as he lifts it from his face, not bothering to bite back a pleased expression at knowing how Corvo’s eyes must widen, how his disbelieving stare must bleed into the lines around them. Bringing the drink to his lips, his sly black eyes slide between the other guests - a monstrous moth mask stands scarcely a few feet behind Corvo with a full view of the Outsider’s grinning face.

Corvo reaches quickly for the mask. One of his fingers hitches around a tentacle before it’s snatched from him, hidden out of reach behind the Outsider’s back. 

“Careful,” says the Outsider. “Waverly is watching.”

Waverly is not watching, but the effect is intended. Corvo turns to see her trail upstairs, passing an Overseer blocking the staircase, and he realizes something the Outsider already knows.

Corvo turns fully around. All at once, the heaviness in the room dissipates. 

Despite his unpredictability being at the forefront of his mind, the Outsider still manages to feel surprised when Corvo clamps a hand around his wrist, spilling his drink onto the velvet rug underneath them, and Blinks.

A split-second later, they’re by the front door leading to the gardens outside.

_Oh,_ the Outsider thinks. He pauses long enough to reattach his mask before wrapping a hand over Corvo’s own around his wrist, and then he Blinks to the kitchens.

Much to the Outsider’s satisfaction, every pair of eyes lock onto them - servants halt with lids held above steaming pots or stutter with champagne bubbling down trays balanced on their hands, and two Overseers jump up from their seats, brows raised incredulously. 

Corvo shoots the Overseers before their screams reach the air; only two sleep darts remain, yet there are four servants, and the Outsider smiles. 

Among smothered pleas of _the Masked Felon is here! He’s down here!_, Corvo drags servants from the doorway and ducks behind counters, shielding his face with silver plates and throwing fruit when his weapons finally run dry. 

“Don’t forget about the Boyles,” the Outsider helpfully supplies, and Corvo throws a pear at him. 

The skirmish leaves him slouched against a wall as the light from his hand dims to black. He turns to the Outsider, disheveled and gasping and _furious._

“Why are you so eager to test me tonight?” he says in a hushed voice.

“Fascinating as always, my dear Corvo,” says the Outsider. “I’m rather envious. You don’t understand how truly lucky you are.”

When Corvo suddenly stalks forward, the Outsider continues, “Your pain, your suffering - you can do something about it. You _are_ doing something about it. I -” 

And he almost says _I can’t,_ but that would be admitting that the plague has reached him, that it’s even remotely capable of reaching him, a _god._

He’s not sick. He’s fine, and getting better.

“She worries about you, you know. I do too, and quite often. Will the Empress continue to haunt your dreams just as she haunts your right pocket? Should I have taken something rather than her heart, something that you could carry easier? Emily, after all, will need a father competent enough to move on from the past, no matter how _dead_ it may be.”

He realizes then that Corvo may want to answer him, but has no means to do so. “I’ve studied others who speak with their hands and I’m skilled enough now to talk with you in a similar way, if you’d prefer?”

Corvo’s hand forms a fist; the Outsider frowns, trying to think which sign that could be, and then Corvo punches him.

Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t be so affected, but he’s not normal, not right now. A horrifying cough wrenches its way up his throat, gripping and burning inside with how hard he’s suppressing it. By the time he turns back to Corvo, head raising from where it shudders in his hands, tears threaten to spill from his eyes.

“My _grief_ isn’t a toy,” Corvo spits. “Don’t play with it.”

The Outsider’s mask lies in pieces on the floor and there’s something about that, isn’t there, that Corvo was able to break his illusion so easily, with only one bit of effort?

“That was -” he starts, then snaps his jaw shut at the sound of his own voice. It sounds like he’s swallowed a handful of pebbles and the lining of his throat’s been scraped away. “That - my sincerest apologies. I only meant to persuade you to keep your recklessness in check.” 

Corvo’s mask is cloaked in darkness beneath his hood and the Outsider wishes now, more than anything, that he could remove it and reveal his expression, to know if he _knows._ His fingers twitch with the thought, then pause as Corvo moves.

Slowly, he brings his hand up to check the damage. Torn skin, the Outsider suspects.

“If I’d known that would’ve worked, I’d have done it long before now,” says Corvo.

The Outsider laughs, breathless for an entirely different reason. Without thinking, he brings a careful hand to Corvo’s jaw and curves a finger underneath his mask. _What would he do, I wonder, if I let everyone see who he truly was?_

_What would he do if I let him see who_ I _truly was?_

His chest isn’t burning, the Outsider realizes, but something inside it is. A visceral ache spreads to the tips of his fingers as they touch the ends of Corvo’s hair, and it’s too much. 

It hurts. His hand against Corvo’s face hurts, his eyes tracing the stillness of Corvo’s shoulders hurts, his world of tomorrows where Corvo’s hand never becomes his to hold _hurts_ \- and for a second he’s lying on the cool ground, blood pouring from his neck, Corvo’s warmth a ghost against his palm.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and vanishes. 

* 

Empty vials roll along the floor, disrupting the silence with soft _clinks_ and _clanks_ as they chase plump rats from their dark dwellings in Vera’s home. The Outsider hovers above his shrine, now half torn apart and emitting a dull purple light. 

Nothing else is in the room. Nothing else is in the house, for the most part. Vera isn’t here and neither are her elixirs - disappointing, but not surprising. 

She’s moved somewhere beneath Slackjaw’s distillery to prepare for a murder that won’t see the light of day. Slackjaw’s lived his whole life with a blade in one hand and a bottle in the other, which was never particularly interesting to the Outsider. His death would only bring one more person to the rats for dinner.

_Rats rats rats,_ an Overseer on the street above grumbles. _Fucking everywhere._

The two vials in the Outsider’s pocket are an itch at the back of his head, weighing like an anchor that threatens to sink him to the bottom of the sea. He hasn’t used them yet and has decided that he doesn’t need them, not at all, though a few more elixirs couldn’t harm anything. 

Piero isn’t in his workshop. It’s empty inside, each available elixir given to Corvo as he braves Dunwall Tower.

A message sits in Piero’s audiograph. The Outsider pushes it in and listens as he rambles about _the spirit is never released_ and _I can keep a heart beating forever._ Forever is shorter than he thinks, and longer than he wants.

Someone curses outside, and the Outsider peers out the window to see the boatman eyeing an approaching storm and tightening his scarf as rain begins to fall. Another voice comes from the grounds outside the pub - Emily screams, then laughs, running inside and shrieking again as Cecelia’s hat covers her head. 

The Outsider tries to remember if he ever screamed with joy as a kid or if anyone ever chased him around and stuck their hat on his head, but all he can remember is having a hat pulled over his eyes, keeping him in the dark.

Nostalgia doesn’t suit him, so he forgets. 

Sokolov isn’t in his office, of course - Corvo made sure of that. The walls and floor are bare, stripped of anything and everything with scientific or monetary value, and the air is cold. 

On the windowsill, the Outsider finds a blue elixir more than half gone. 

Weepers moan on the street below him, ashen and bleeding streaks of red as they pace back and forth across the same spot for several minutes. He’s reminded of the broken mirror in the Estate District where he glimpsed his future for a short time, and feels something colder than the room crawl up his spine. 

A moan sounds from below, long and eerie in the wind, and the Outsider forgets the mirror and the blood from his eyes, only listening to the noise echoing in his head. It’s dreary, like a dying whale.

* 

The Void sounds like a coughing man, the blood and life wrenching from his chest as his breaths waver to none, though the Void isn’t supposed to sound like _anything._

Whales swim upside down in the sudden upheaval of everything, their languid and sleepy demeanors replaced by pitiful cries as they weep blood; water rushes without direction, spouting as if from a mouth, ice cold; midnight shadows spiral everywhere like a giant boot wavering above, ready to stomp down and press the dying life out of the Void. Only candles dripping wax into the gaping abyss below illuminate these travesties.

The Outsider stares at brick crumbling beneath his feet and realizes he can’t control any of it.

It’s a confluence of sound, confusing with each destructive measure that’s far too ugly for harmony. He wonders if this is how it sounds to be devoured by rats, gnawing down and down until there’s nothing left - no flesh, no bone, only a memory of what was.

“Rivers change course over many lifetimes, and eventually all bridges tumble down,” said the Outsider on Kaldwin’s Bridge soon after Corvo had captured Sokolov a second time. “A thousand years ago there was another city on this spot.”

Corvo had ignored him, working instead to not lose the scientist a third time.

Now he can’t stop thinking of his own words and how complete they’ve become. What was in the Void a thousand years before he was? It’s an impossible question, though the answer is a beacon of light in the dark around him: looking at the destruction of everything, the Outsider knows what the Void will be tomorrow, and the next day, and for a thousand years to come.

_He’s not special like you are, my dear Corvo,_ he remembers, and something else in the Void implodes with want, something crashing and beating and bleeding red.

This is the third thing he leaves behind in his new life: the Void erupts around him, and for once he feels not at home as this wretchedness rots and dies.

* 

By nightfall, the Lord Regent is dead. 

Cheers erupt from the Hound Pits Pub, exuberant silhouettes flush with gold and joy and laughter as they throw back their glasses and drink to their hearts’ content. Rain pounds on the streets outside and the Outsider once again feels like what his name suggests.

He should go inside. 

A stranger stares at him from inside a puddle on the cobblestones - gaunt cheekbones and veiny red streaks from beneath his collar greet him as an intimidating imitation of himself. He feels like a reminder of his human self, like a poorly finished painting of what he once was. It’s strange how people continue to exist in so many different ways - in a reflection, a mirror, a memory.

Corvo grew up in Serkonos, young and ambitious and _interesting._ The Outsider thinks of Corvo’s life, of all the tides shifted in his favor and the depth of his footprints along the shoreline, crawling up the Isles while the Outsider never bothered to step foot in the sand. He has a family and a life that beats eternally in many different people, one that makes others feel like living, even when death grows in them. 

The rain comes down harder and slices into the Outsider like a blade, reminding him of blood on his throat, wet and warm - he can be reborn again, but what is there to be reborn from? The filth of Dunwall would coat his skin and turn him into something else, something far more disturbing than a lonely god.

_And you think I am too._

The Void is gone, Dunwall belongs only to the rats, and the Outsider has nowhere to go. There’s no home left for him in the world, but home has never been a place for him.

He coughs horrifically into his elbow and thinks once again, _I should go inside._

Inside and upstairs, Corvo’s lying in a heap on the ground and is almost fully delirious, soft breaths coming slower and slower.

“You find your way into such interesting places, my dear Corvo,” says the Outsider. “Strange how there’s always a little more innocence left to lose.”

There’s no moonlight seeping through the windows and no visible lights on the water, not like the last time the Outsider visited. He hovers scarcely an inch over Corvo and prods at his wrist, feeling the steady pulse underneath his sleeve, warm with golden drinks flowing through his veins, though a circle of red traces one of his knuckles.

“It must have been agony for such a tightly-wound man to watch as the plague spiraled out of control, as the people on the streets went mad and died bleeding from the eyes,” says the Outsider as Corvo’s fingers twitch under his careful touch. “Don’t worry, I’m not about to tell you that he deserved sympathy. The worst part must have been knowing that it was all his fault. As you hunted down his people one by one, and finally came for him, he must have realized that all his planning was for nothing.”

An unexpected cough wracks his body and the Outsider nearly bends over with it. He coughs into his hand, loud against the beating rain outside, and Corvo’s pulse jumps. After a few more seconds, the coughing stops, and Corvo does nothing else.

At least the poison’s keeping him from doing what the Outsider fears he could do. He sees a future where Corvo’s gaze is undeniably filled with disgust, his rough hands shoving against the Outsider’s chest, pushing him outside to leave him alone in the worst way possible - not by his choice, but by someone else’s.

“And that must have been exquisitely terrifying,” he finishes. 

He tugs a few strands of hair from Corvo’s face, revealing wide eyes rather than half-lidded ones. The Outsider’s brows furrow as he wonders how shocking his arrival could truly be, but then Corvo’s glassy gaze shifts over his shoulder, and something pierces his neck.

It’s nothing good, thin and dripping cold.

The Outsider’s feet touch the ground and he knows he’ll never float again. He collapses in a coughing fit between Corvo and the figure with the needle, pushing his forehead into the bedroom floor in an attempt to _stop, stop fucking coughing._

A wish comes to him suddenly, much like the probable poison swimming in his veins - a familiar desire he’d had many, many years ago, when he’d first woken up in his new life. He wishes that when his throat was cut, he’d merely died instead of having to live with this loneliness, of having to see everyone he’s come to care for disappear in one desperate breath.

* 

A boat with too-rough wood glides on silky water beneath the Outsider. Someone taps their foot beside his ear, a familiar tune that feeds the growing ache in his head. There’s a weight next to his arm - _Corvo._ He knows they’re in a boat to the Flooded District, and he knows the boatman has saved their lives, but - 

But he knows he’s tired, and he’s going to sleep now.

* 

The Outsider wakes slouched in the Flooded District with old advertisements and wanted posters peeling from the walls around him. In the muddy water beside him floats a blade and two elixirs, their colors a hazy blue through the disturbing red staining the edges of his vision.

Reaching for the blade’s hilt submerged underwater, the Outsider angles it across his chest and presses the arm holding it in an attempt to stop his shaking. He closes his eyes and searches for the near future to test the waters of his fate, but something slams against his mind, shoving him into an empty space where his thoughts should be. 

With one troubled breath, his eyes fly open, flitting around the drowned district as a foreboding sense of fear creeps in. A realization swims in the muck around him, hangs as flies in the air, flickers in the fire to his left - he can’t see the future anymore. It’s like one of his senses is gone, cut from him and dropped into an endless abyss. 

The Outsider doesn’t know if he’ll eventually escape the Flooded District and, even more troubling, he doesn’t know if Corvo will escape, given the change in circumstances. Did the Loyalists kill him after discovering him with the Outsider? Will he have enough supplies to survive the Whalers’ wrath?

He keeps the blade and doesn’t touch the elixirs. Everything is quiet except for the sound of rats as he squeezes his eyes tighter, longing to dream.

Corvo is here, crouched in front of him. The Outsider knows that he isn’t truly here when Corvo leans in and speaks his name, making it feel real and like something that _belongs._ To speak a name is to breathe it into existence, whether it be a whisper or a great gasp from deep within. 

After centuries of hearing his name spoken, now is the time he chooses to listen. 

The Outsider touches Corvo’s jaw and curves a hand around the back of his neck, further into his hair, and thinks about kissing him. This is the fourth thing the Outsider leaves behind in his new life: his restraint, in every last way.

He tilts his head forward, eyes fluttering shut, before a thudding causes them to open with great haste. In the curve of his palm is nothing but empty air and a missed step forward, a mistake in the right direction. 

Above him, an ominous railcar sends white body bags to splash into the water or crack onto the ground where hordes of rats scurry in excitement. The Outsider is too far away to hear their feast unravel, but the image is louder than anything else - the Flooded District is where weepers go to die twice.

On the brick across from him hangs Corvo’s wanted poster; for a second, the Outsider can pretend he’s in the Distillery District, resting against a humming shrine as Corvo retreats from Vera’s musty home. The words on the poster blur together and ultimately mean nothing, but the drawing of Corvo is a comforting and calming tide among a sea of rats. 

Curling into himself, the Outsider dreams of blood pouring in waves from his eyes, drowning him in his own despair.

* 

“- fine. He’s jostled a little, but I had him on my back for most of the trip over. Where should -” 

The low, rumbling murmurs of someone talking near the Outsider stops, and then he’s being lowered from their gentle hold onto something mimicking a soft bed, but harsh like a mound of hay.

“- coughing. Talking, too, though I couldn’t make any of it out. Is it safe here? I need to -”

More muffled talking, then a groan. It breaks the fogginess in the Outsider’s mind, though not in a good way. 

“There’s hardly any left, sorry,” says a gruff voice. “I know how you feel about incendiary bolts, but Piero says - _hey!_” 

The person shouting comes alarmingly close before they shoot backward with a yelp as the Outsider vomits beside the bed. Quick hands clasp around the back of his neck and guide him closer to the floor, where he continues to hack out his lungs for several seconds as the gruff voice, which he’s now distinguished as the boatman, curses.

“Samuel,” says Corvo, a breath behind him. “Go downstairs.”

The boatman leaves without a fuss and the Outsider thinks that, really, he should be more offended, though he should be a lot of things that he isn’t right now - not making a spectacle of himself in front of Corvo, for starters.

He drags a hand down his face without direction, a nervous tension rising in his blood. “You - you’re out. Oh, of course you are, my dear, wonderful Corvo -”

“Don’t talk,” says Corvo.

“I left two elixirs with hope that you’d find them and, if a terrible situation arose, use them. Did you? How quickly were you able to evade the Whalers? And what of Daud? Is he -”

“Please,” Corvo repeats, and the Outsider falls silent.

It’s too quiet in Piero’s workshop. His exhausted eyes travel around the room, taking in the empty whale oil tanks, the rumpled bedsheets beneath his legs, and a single lantern casting orange and gold light on the ends of Corvo’s hair, before finally looking at Corvo’s face. A weight drenched in layers of thick dread drops in his stomach at finding Corvo silently boring holes into the wall with a strange dejectedness about him, as if he’s torn around the edges.

_Oh,_ the Outsider thinks. “Concerned with why your powers aren’t working?”

“I’m more concerned with you. You’re sick.”

And he wants to say that he’s not, that he’s _fine,_ but it’s getting worse, and this shouldn’t be happening to him. This doesn’t make _sense._ He’s a god bleeding out from a wound he can’t see, a thought that carves him hollow like driftwood on the sea as he waits for a storm to drag him under.

“Are you dying?” says Corvo, as if the question was wrenched from the end of his tongue.

The Outsider sits and wipes at his mouth, drawing his hand back to find his knuckles streaked red. “I’ve died before, my dear Corvo. A second time is no great tragedy.”

He doesn’t miss how Corvo avoids his gaze and instead moves to the balcony overlooking the first floor, unable to even glance at the Outsider with the rush of anger, disgust, _pity_ clouding his vision. It feels worse than being sick, though the Outsider should expect nothing less - it’s what he’s earned in life, and it’s what he deserves in death. 

The night of the Boyle party comes to him as a quiet ringing smothered under the heaviness in his head. He remembers bubbling champagne, glamourous feasts, a punch that turned into a cough that turned into something much worse. Bolder than these memories sings one of a pale hand reaching under a mask, slow and captivating, and the question that encouraged it - what will Corvo choose to do in this moment, one filled with so much pain and for so long?

“No need to dirty your hands on the sickness of my clothes, or waste your breath in my disease-riddled air,” says the Outsider. “I’ll rid yourself of me without complaint. I only ask one favor: don’t forget me, as I won’t you.” 

It’s abundantly the wrong thing to say when Corvo turns suddenly, hands clenched at his side as shadows deepen along his face. 

“What do you expect me to _do,_ exactly?” he hisses. “Hit you? Throw you outside? Let the Overseers finish what the Flooded District couldn’t?”

The Outsider flinches. “I can’t possibly choose for you,” he says, raising a hand between them.

Corvo breathes out deeply and runs a hand through his hair, letting it fall to his side before running it through again. “It’s not fair. None of this is fair.”

“The Overseers milling around outside shouldn’t be an issue for you -”

“No,” says Corvo, gaze fixed on the red windowpane, where paint peels onto the bed and smeared fingerprints fog up the glass. “I don’t care about the Overseers. Your life shouldn’t have been like this. It’s not _fair._” 

_It’s not anger,_ the Outsider realizes in one sudden breath.

“Sometimes, in the middle of the day or in the dead of night, I’ll hold Jessamine’s heart in my hands and try not to squeeze too hard. I’ll think about her when I forget not to, wondering how far her laugh would echo in certain rooms, or where she would pace outside the Hound Pits Pub when the sun is high enough to clear the clouds. I picture her death and it makes me sad, knowing how the regret will weigh on me my entire life. I don’t need you to tell me that it will.”

“I’ve seen so many stories play out and yours is the least deserving of suffering, yet despair comes either way,” says the Outsider. “Perhaps that’s just the nature of man.”

A beam of sunlight passes over Corvo’s face, and he looks down against it. “I’ve never realized it before, but I think of you often, too. I remember meeting you and how your gift burned when it first touched my hand. Finding you in the Flooded District with the rats nearly on you - it felt like that first touch. It _burned_ me, seared right into my skin until I couldn’t feel the aching anymore. Your death would be a scar I couldn’t live with.”

“Corvo -”

“To lose a friend and gain one so suddenly, so intimately,” says Corvo, absentmindedly tracing his Mark. “You helped me work through the pain of the last 6 months, but you had to figure out your own pain yourself. I think you still believe you’re alone. It’s not fair that this life was given to you, and I wish it was different, _better,_ but you’re not alone. You’ve never been alone.”

Laughter sounds from below, barely a huff of air in the revelation masquerading as noise in the closeness of their room.

_This is how home feels,_ the Outsider thinks. _Not a place, but a person._

The realization is suffocating and he coughs, long and drawn-out; each cough carries the red haze from the edges of his sight closer to the center in a terrifying manner. He pushes the blanket away and grabs something warmer, holding on to Corvo’s hand through the words that can’t reach his lips and the overwhelming, serendipitous joy in him. 

He says the only thing he can say and the only thing left to say. “Emily’s on Kingsparrow Island. She’s locked in the bathroom at the very top. She’s furious, but alive, and misses you urgently.”

Corvo looks at him, looks into him and through him. The Outsider looks back, and sees one of the only things he believes in anymore.

* 

_Your life has taken a turn, has it not?_

The Outsider’s haggard reflection in the water answers as ripples across his desolation, an unfortunate note on the sea - _yes, very much so._

“For the record, I never wanted us to meet like this,” says Samuel. “The clouds aren’t helping. Everything’s just unnecessarily dreary, isn’t it?”

In their rowboat, rows of puffy gray clouds loom over Dunwall, stretching long and dark across the mahogany. Sitting remains uncomfortable for the Outsider, reminding him too much of what he lacks, what sacred abilities the past few days have stolen from him.

“Even in silence, the pain scolds me like I’ve done something wrong,” he says, swatting a fly near his ear.

Samuel hums. “I’ve learned that you’ve got to make some noise back, be louder than whatever’s hurting you. It’s hard to do when you’re fighting a storm, but screaming in the middle of the ocean, knowing that there’s no one around for miles - it’s cathartic. You should try it sometime, Corvo.”

“Oh, look,” says Corvo with a scowl. “We’re here.”

Kingsparrow Island lies on a secluded shore in front of them, towering with silent intimidation under an expanse of clouds taunting rain.

“Good luck, Corvo,” says Samuel, stopping the boat beside a shelf of rocks. “If anyone deserves it, you do.” As an afterthought, he says, “Give my best to Emily. After she’s on the throne, she won’t have time for an old man like me.”

The Outsider laughs, then shuts his eyes as red invades his sight. “Emily will never forget you. She’ll read and reread your letters to her long into the night and keep a carving from you as a treasure above her bed.”

They both stare at him like he’s turned into a hagfish. “Have I said something?” he says, raising a brow.

“Yeah,” Samuel grins, shaking his head in disbelief. “Yeah, you did. Go on now, Corvo. I’ll keep an eye on him.”

At Corvo’s sudden hesitation as he lingers beside the boat, the Outsider says, “Don’t worry. I imagine dying will be an ocean I can’t swim out of, or a bite of a sour apple filled with worms, or a final twitch as my eyes snap shut. Or stay open. I’m not exactly sure how it works.”

Wind rustles Corvo’s already tangled hair and cools the pink in his cheeks, blowing the cuff of his sleeve up to reveal the black Mark. He angles his body away from the boat, turning as if to leave, but he never moves away; instead, he steps back into the boat with such ferocity that it nearly topples in the water.

The Outsider grabs his arm, his wrist, traveling lower to his hand, and he holds on. It’s all too familiar as Corvo leans in, making the Outsider’s heart swell when fingers brush against his cheek, clasping the collar of his coat, drawing him further and further in. He thinks about kissing him, and then he does. 

And then he coughs, and flies come out of his mouth. 

No one’s in front of the Outsider. He’s in a little rowboat in the middle of the ocean, swaying side to side with the weight of bodies falling from the sky. Thick, red water seeps into the boat, followed by a body cracking into its center, splitting it in two. Instead of drowning, the ocean turns into a sea of festering rats that sing with the sound of bones disappearing. 

His eyes shoot open to find the boatman still in front of him, pouring most of his attention into whittling an odd creature among a sea devoid of bodies, rats, and Corvo. 

“The city’s going to pull itself up, I believe,” says Samuel. “Too many good people here to let it all turn to ashes.”

_It’s not fair,_ the Outsider thinks. He wants and he wants and he wants and it’s all his life is now. All there’s ever been is Corvo, and forever Corvo. But forever is shorter than he thinks, and never long enough.

Wiping the blood from his eyes, he gathers every last semblance of power in him and holds it close to his chest as a final thought reaches him - he knows, despite what he wants, that he needs to say goodbye.

“Thank you, Samuel,” says the Outsider. “You’ve certainly proven to be one of those many good people.”

He removes the elixirs from his pocket - two from Vera, half from Sokolov - and drinks them hastily before vanishing to the top of the tower, shaking with the effort of it all and with relief at realizing the rats can’t reach him now.

One hand catches against the wall as he stumbles up the twisting staircase, fingernails digging into the wallpaper until the final step, where voices echo from the main room. The Outsider’s eyes are too _tight;_ he reaches for the railing but his hand slips away as if wet and, when he holds it to his face, his palm glistens with blood.

“The Outsider, they called me,” he says to himself, and laughs weakly. “Now they call me a weeper, and soon they’ll call me nothing at all - ha! How comfortable, to be known as nothing at all -”

A _bang_ breaks his foggy haze and it takes him far too long to realize that it came from him collapsing in a heap before the doorway. As his vision begins to clear, his surroundings reveal themselves as the highest room on Kingsparrow Island, where all who enter tread on a thin wire the size of a bloody whisker. From the next room comes the voices of Corvo’s traitors, which are really too much to worry about right now. 

It becomes slightly more difficult to breathe when his coughs begin again with a new ferociousness. He closes his eyes against the burning in his chest, if only for a second, just one final second - 

And opens them to deeply worried brows above distraught eyes staring into his own, tracing the decay of his face as steady fingertips press against his slowing pulse. 

“You’re miraculous, Corvo,” says the Outsider with a quiet smile. “So ends the interregnum, and now Emily Kaldwin the First will take her mother’s throne after a season of turmoil. You’ll stand at her side, guiding her young mind and protecting her from those who seek to exploit her, or cause her harm.”

“You’re not making any sense,” says Corvo, distracted and voice coursing with a frightening dread.

“You watched and listened when other men would have shouted in rage and you held back instead of striking. With the passing of the plague and Emily’s ascension comes a golden age, brought about by your hand.”

In his gaze lies something that won’t settle, something that the Outsider wants to question and open up, but instead he says, “I’m glad I was here to see your glorious day. I came to tell you something.”

As a response, Corvo moves his hand to the Outsider’s forehead and pushes his shoulder to the wall, away from where he was crouched forward, face hidden, with the strength of his lungs turning themselves inside out.

“It’s okay,” says the Outsider around his coughs.

“You’re not. It’s not over yet.”

“It’s okay, Corvo. I need to tell you something.”

“Stop,” says Corvo, repeating the troubled word until his hands still on the Outsider’s skin. “Why - I don’t understand, not when you’re like this. How do I help you like this?”

“You know, when I first saw you I thought, I wonder how he would look alone, off the stage of the world and into my arms instead. How bright his face and how loud his laugh, for no eyes and ears but mine to enjoy. A shame it will end like this.”

“Sokolov, he’s - Piero and him can find a cure that’s sure to work. With their minds combined, I’d be shocked to find the plague still unsolved in a month’s time. In the meantime, you can stay at Dunwall Tower in rooms where no one will ever discover you, and Emily -”

Darkness breathes down the Outsider’s neck and mixes with Corvo’s frantic hands and words. Flies buzz everywhere and he can’t see much of anything, instead left to feel Corvo beside him and hear his rushed murmurs tumbling through the room.

“I need -” the Outsider starts, and then his hands wrap tight around his throat, moving to cover his mouth as blood splays from it, followed by his eyes squeezing shut against the thick red escaping them.

Perhaps this was his future all along. Perhaps this is what the cultists, or the stars, or a being higher than himself intended. Lying in a puddle of blood all those centuries ago, the Outsider wonders if he knew, even then, that there could never have been anything more than this. No matter how quickly he turns his mind from it, a simple truth reaches him: life begins and ends with blood. How poetic.

He’s sick and dying and this is it. This is the end.

“Thank you, my dear Corvo,” he says, wheezing under weak breaths. “My life was empty before I met you, and now I must leave so soon. Don’t let my emptiness grow in you; rather, plant something else in its place. Make it something that won’t wither under your pain - something flowering, and gentle, and as lovely as you.” 

There’s whale songs now, awful wailing that wafts off the waves and rain from the clouds and pours into each vestibule of his being. Someone’s hand warms his cheek, squeezing and soft and smearing the blood around his eyes, and arms wrap him against something solid, something whole, and something so, so beautiful. But the rats are coming, and they’re hungry.

Corvo’s hand drops from his. This is the last thing he leaves behind in his new life.

* 

The morning is too bright and smells like rain on the ocean. 

There’s a hand in his hair, heavy and warm, and fond eyes staring into his. “Green, hm? How surprising. Reminds me of Serkonos. Reminds me of home.”

_Alive._ He’s alive, and human again.

The Outsider blinks, then smiles, and everything is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> here's the [reference](https://static.b-bro.net/img/400/8/venetian-mask-lily-genesis-fine-arts.jpg) [pics](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/35ebe299-258d-4ac4-92a9-e7f8da71771d/damo0xo-8ff0eb63-014e-4d1b-8d02-ff55aabe4b14.jpg/v1/fill/w_894,h_894,q_70,strp/tentacle_mask_by_missmacabress_damo0xo-pre.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTAyNCIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzM1ZWJlMjk5LTI1OGQtNGFjNC05MmE5LWU3ZjhkYTcxNzcxZFwvZGFtbzB4by04ZmYwZWI2My0wMTRlLTRkMWItOGQwMi1mZjU1YWFiZTRiMTQuanBnIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTEwMjQifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6aW1hZ2Uub3BlcmF0aW9ucyJdfQ.f96XDr0XrAhW0ZSbwJSW3yjRSPh6AIWbXIV3qBwbpMQ) i used for the Outsider's mask at the Boyle party, if you're interested.
> 
> thank you for reading! i greatly appreciate any kudos or comments :-) and hope that you enjoyed everything!


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